By David Edward Clark
When you hear “Safety and Security!” or “ResEd,” usually, you’ve been caught. Here’s what you need to know about Oberlin’s alcohol and drug policies.
Know Your Rights: The Alcohol and Drug Policy
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Dr. Robert Sapolsky at Finney as Final Convocation Speaker
Photo by Carolyn Weinstein
By: Nick Perry
When Dr. Robert Sapolsky of Stanford University asked a packed Finney Chapel how many people had a family history of heart disease and cancer on Thursday night, nearly everybody raised a hand. However, when asked about a family history of leprosy and dysentery, all hands went down.
“We are not like normal mammals,” Sapolsky told the crowd. “We don’t get sick like normal mammals, we don’t die like normal mammals.” Sapolsky’s convocation, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: A Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping, discussed the evolution of stress study and how humans have a penchant for causing their own stress.
Stress study is a relatively recent field, explained Sapolsky, and was not fully advanced until scientists began to ask “totally bizarre questions like ‘what’s your psychological makeup,’ or ‘what’s your social status,’ or ‘how are people of your social status treated in society.’” When examining these questions, Sapolsky argued, the exacerbation of diseases can be directly correlated to stress.
When homeostatic balance is lost, animals become stressed and, in the short-term, they turn on the stress response. Humans, however, are a rare animal that turn the stress response on if they “think [their] body is going to be knocked out of homeostatic balance.” Unlike 99% of animals, humans turn the short-term stress response on all the time because they have the capacity to look to the future and complain about it. For this reason, said Sapolsky we are the most vulnerable mammals to stress-related disease.
Sapolsky outlined seven effects of the typical stress response. When an animal is under immediate duress it rapidly mobilizes energy from fat cells, increases its cardiovascular tone, enhances its immune system, sharpens its cognition and alertness, and suppresses digestion, growth, and reproduction. In a stressful situation, all of these steps must occur or, Sapolsky explained, “you’ve got like a 30 second life expectancy.” But humans abuse the stress response and often get sick as they run into what Sapolsky referred to as the “exhaustion phase” when the body is working out of homeostatic balance for too long. While a human will never run out of adrenaline, Sapolsky–in a tribute to Oberlin leftism–argued that the problem is that “after while you’re spending so damn much on your military that you don’t give as much to healthcare and social services.
Sapolsky offered a number of stress-related disorders to each adaptive stress response. By suppressing stress and hostility, disorders such as adult onset diabetes, hypertension, and atherosclerosis can take root in humans. Stress also impairs ability to repair ulcers and suppresses growth. Sapolsky discussed a child who suffered from psychogenic dwarfism while growing up in a stressful, unloving environment, but began to grow when he developed a feeling relationship with a nurse who was studying him. Incredibly, when she left for a two week vacation, the boy stopped growing, only to resume as soon as she returned. This case spoke volumes to the influence of companionship on reducing stress.
Reproductive functions are also thrown off by the stress response, Sapolsky argued. Studies have shown that females under constant stress can begin to run low on estrogen and lose the ability to ovulate. Stressed out males tend to develop erectile dysfunction because, as Sapolsky stated, “In order to get an erection you have to be calm and vegetated.”
Stress can contribute to memory loss, depression, and the endangerment of neuronal development, as well. Since the body releases dopamine when under stress to enhance alertness, if a person is continuously under stress his or her ability to produce a happy feeling becomes inhibited, and neurons can become damaged.
Although stress is related to many diseases, Sapolsky emphatically insisted that it has absolutely no link to cancer as was once thought.
In his concluding statements, Sapolsky presented a study performed on lab rats that examined the development of ulcers on rats in a stressful environment. The experiment put rats in a cage and shocked them at random. The study found that rats who were shocked alone, without warning, were at significantly greater risk of developing ulcers. Meanwhile, rats that were permitted to have an outlet had very reduced chances of getting ulcers. From the study it was concluded that there are specific psychological modifiers to the stress-response. Outlets for frustration, a sense of control, a perception of life improving, and social support can significantly lower stress levels.
Sapolsky reminded the crowd that “none of us are ever going to be stressed running away from saber-toothed tigers, none of us are going to be wrestling for canned food items at the supermarket, instead you’re going to have the luxury to sit around and invent these psycho-social stressors.” He urged people to never be socially isolated because you will become stressed. Humans, Sapolsky claimed, are “smart enough to invent this stuff, and foolish enough to fall for it,” making us very prone to stress-related disorders, and constantly in need of modifiers to the stress-response.
Karen Florini ’79 Shares Insight on Climate Policy
By David Roswell
Photo by David Roswell
Karen Florini ’79 presented an optimistic yet realistic view into federal climate change policy last Thursday in Hallock Auditorium. Speaking in her personal capacity, she outlined how Washington can pass a climate bill in 2010. With confidence, she said that a bill could be passed this year, emphasizing that, “it is hard but there is real hope.”
She started by speaking about the obstacles to passing a climate bill. She first pointed to Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma and his friends such as Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, and their deep-pocketed partners, Fox News and the Chamber of Commerce; right wing organizations with vested interests in preventing a climate bill. She then spoke about the healthcare bill suffocating Washington, which is preventing anything from moving forwards.
“Cap and trade is dead, and we’re glad,” declared Florini, speaking broadly for environmentalists in Washington. She updated the audience on the Kerry-Boxer bill, which would have mandated a federal, comprehensive cap and trade system, saying it was stuck, with no hope of headway. It would have given a limited and diminishing number of permits to polluters, and allowed trade of these permits between firms.
In lieu of the Kerry-Boxer bill, a new bill, still in its very infant stages, is being co-written by Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts (D), Joe Lieberman of Connecticut (I), and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina (R). The bill, still only an unreleased, ten-page document, calls for sector specific caps, beginning with utilities.
This idea has garnered broader support than previous climate bills, with positive responses from vital players, from Senator Baucus, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, to Mary Landrieu of Louisiana (D), who is one of the least environmentally friendly democrats in the senate (and supported by Louisiana gas and oil companies) and even some Republicans.
“If you’re anti-nuke, I’m sorry, get over it,” began Florini’s list of concessions environmentalists will have to make for this, or any other climate bill, to be passed this year, because, “it’s clear that several key Senators are going to need nuclear subsidies in order to be able to vote for climate legislation.” The authors of the bill are also considering offshore drilling opportunities for states to bring in additional revenue.
One of the big challenges for viable legislation is the future of the existing Clean Air Act. After an EPA inquiry found that greenhouse gas emissions pose a threat to human health, the EPA was required to regulate emissions. However, this ruling is being threatened, primarily by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (R), who has issued a formal resolution of disapproval on the EPA’s endangerment finding. The finding is “a predicate to essentially all regulatory action under the Clean Air Act; if you don’t have a finding, you can’t issue regulations,” explained Florini. If the House adopts this resolution of disapproval, the Clean Air Act will never have regulatory power again. Fortunately, Obama will surely veto it, but the process is eating up time and energy, and diverting focus from the main issues.
Florini presented a laundry list of reasons for hope. Increasing technology, earth day initiatives, and better communication between political figures are all reasons for hope. The support from the Pentagon is also key in making change this year.
Another reason for hope is a bill that is already written. Susan Collins of Maine and Maria Cantwell of Alaska have introduced a cap and dividend bill, with a linkage fee for transportation fuels. This system will auction off permits for utilities to emit greenhouse gases. The revenue generated will be split into two, with 75% going to cash payments to the American people, and the remaining 25% being invested into green energy technology. The linkage fee for transportation will be added on to fuel prices somewhere along the supply chain; the price will be determined by the allowances under the cap.
After the talk, the audience was invited to ask questions. When asked about what scientists should be doing to push policy, Florini said there is no new science that needs to be done to prove to people that climate change is real. What should be done, she said, is a distillation of all of the information for the public down to three key facts: greenhouse gases trap heat, there are more greenhouses gases than before, and the gases are coming from people. However, she pointed out, “If there was a tablet from Moses that said, ‘Here’s how to do climate legislation,’ there would still be vociferous opposition.” When pressed about how environmentalists can win, she said, “We win by fighting.”
Florini ended her talk by outlining its take-home messages. “Climate legislation is hard, there is real hope, and get busy—now.”
DRAG BALL CANCELED
By David Edward Clark
oberlin.edu
Drag Ball has been canceled this year due to lack of student participation in the planning and lack of proper funding due to chartering process issues.
“My best hope is that it’ll be a shock in a way that really energizes people to make a change and commit to spending some time organizing the event,” said Sarah Chase ‘10, the sole member of the Drag Ball Committee. “It has a home on campus; people just need to figure out if they want to really own it.”
Dean of Students Linda Gates gave this statement via email concerning why Drag Ball was cancelled:
Last year after DB, a number of us met several times with the two DB organizers (including this year’s organizer) and we were very clear: if students did not charter the group, did not plan and organize the event in advance, and did not procure funding through procedures that all student organizations use to fund their activities, Drag Ball would be in jeopardy. When none of those things happened, those of us who participated in that discussion—including this year’s sole student organizer—reached consensus that Drag Ball should be canceled for spring 2010.
Student Finance Committee has a policy that an organization cannot take ad hoc money for more than two years in a row without becoming chartered, but “Drag Ball was always kind of the exception to that rule,” said Chase. In the past, Drag Ball has asked for and received ad hoc money from Student Finance Committee, Student Union Board and the Forum Board.
Haley Laws ’09 began the chartering process. “It got stopped somewhere in the process–which is a frustratingly slow process,” said Chase, who is uncertain why Drag Ball was not chartered in the past, “but it didn’t seem to be needed until recently.”
Chase revised Laws’ charter application and submitted it to Student Life Committee in January; however, the General Faculty Committee will not meet to discuss chartering new organizations until March 17th.
“I have great hope that it will be back next year,” said Chase, who sees a full and dedicated committee as necessary for this to happen as a charter. Chase believes lack of student support comes from the fact that “people don’t realize it needs so much support, and that’s a huge problem.” The administration will be happy to see the return of Drag Ball as soon as the organization fulfills the proper requirements of student groups.
“If everyone has a better idea of the history and the politics and the needs of the event, they will be able to act more effectively to make it happen in the future,” said Chase, who plans to write a book on Drag Ball so future Oberlin generations know the ins and outs of the event and can throw the party properly. Chase plans to start scheduling next year’s Drag Ball this semester.
Chase hopes for drag-themed events this semester. There are still plans for performers to come to the ‘Sco for a much smaller engagement. “I want people to know that this is not Drag Ball, that they need to work for Drag Ball,” said Chase when asked whether this is just a toned down version of the event, but “It’s definitely in the spirit of celebrating drag and gender and queerness and genderfucking and all that stuff.”
Christianity and Oberlin: Not So Incompatible
By Angela Suico
firstchurchoberlin.org
Every Friday night at a few minutes before 7:00 p.m., a small group of students gather in the lounge of Barnard House on the famously liberal campus of Oberlin College. After greeting each other, they sink into the room’s mismatched chairs and couches and discuss typical college-life concerns—Facebook statuses, extracurricular activities and off-campus excursions.
But when seven o’clock rolls around, prayer worship begins and the students start to sing hymns praising Jesus.
Some of them raise their hands in reverence during the slower songs and clap their hands to the beat during faster ones. Between hymns, when junior Lisa Brown asks, “Is there anybody here who loves God?” they erupt into enthusiastic cheers.
This group of students—the Oberlin Christian Fellowship—is just a portion of the passionate intellectuals at Oberlin who identify as Christian.
Christian Oberlin students are well aware of the stigma associated with their faith. “People expect Oberlin to be an open-minded place, but my experience has found that to be false on the surface,” says Sam Berger, a junior majoring in Physics and Philosophy. “My friends know to some extent why I do what I do and think that it is cool that I believe what I believe, but only those [who] have seen me deal with struggles know that I am not just some Bible-thumping non-thinking hypocrite.”
The discussions at the OCF gatherings clearly subvert this “non-thinking” stereotype. During his presentation on evolution at one OCF meeting, Chase Nelson, a 4th-year biology major, asked the audience if marrying one’s relative was acceptable. His question prompted a series of critical questions from members like, “Where are we [in time]?” and “What kind of relation?” while others remarked with amusement how dissecting such an inquiry was a classic characteristic of Oberlin students.
“You’re not supposed to interpret [the question]” Chase said with a laugh.
“Stop thinking!” joked one male member, slamming his palm down against his thigh like a judge with a gavel.
But many say that out of the various reactions to their spirituality, the most common response is interest in their beliefs. “Everybody I share my faith with is at least respectful of my choices if not supportive,” says sophomore Sujata Murty. “Most of the people I talk to are actually curious either about God or how I reconcile issues such as God and evolution.”
Mieko Gavia, a junior theater major, expresses a similar sentiment.
“A lot of people just make assumptions [about Christianity], and they say something, and when you say something back to them, then you get into this really nice dialogue about faith and what it means and what it doesn’t mean and religion in general. I’ve learned a lot from other people, and I think other people have learned a lot from me.”
Such curiosity may be indicative of a larger trend in Oberlin students’ relationship to religious issues. According to the Director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, Reverend Greg McGonigle, the annual survey of incoming students’ spiritual interests reported that over 50% expressed interest in connecting with the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, while 45% expressed interest in multifaith activities. Besides students of faith, these statistics include “students who identify as atheist, agnostic, or of no affiliation—which means that even these students are searching.”
Rev. McGonigle also cites the large attendance numbers for different multifaith events—“more than 300 students at an event we sponsored on belief and unbelief, over 100 people at our campus-wide celebration of the Hindu festival of Diwali and over 40 people at a Parents Weekend presentation called “Windows to the Sacred: Iconography in Eastern Spirituality”— as another example of Oberlin students’ interest in spiritual topics.
Pastor Mary Hammond, the co-advisor of the Ecumenical Christians of Oberlin (ECO), agrees with Rev. McGonigle.
“I often feel like there is a lot more interest in religion than is evidenced by the numbers of students that participate in student religious groups. That seems clear to me when guest speakers come to campus to share about various topics in religion or a book they have written [about faith].”
Rev. McGonigle admits, however, that Oberlin has room for improvement.
“Oberlin is somewhat unconventional in its spiritual demographics,” says Rev. McGonigle, “and we do need to fight some stereotypes, prejudice and bigotry against religion and spirituality that silences people and makes them feel unwelcome.”
Students have experienced such prejudice even within their classrooms. Gavia says in one of her courses, her teacher placed Christianity within different types of mythology. And Pastor Steve Hammond, who co-advises ECO with his wife Mary, says he has heard similar stories regarding the faculty’s approach to Christianity. One ECO member, for example, reported that in her introductory religion class, the teacher only focused on the eccentric aspects of Christianity, like snake handlers and Jesus camp, while treating other religions more seriously.
“Faculty should know better than that,” says Hammond. “I get frustrated when I hear about faculty dismissing faith as something that’s contrary to academia when they have colleagues who are people of faith and they’ve studied with [individuals] who are people of faith.”
Though some students found the prominence of atheists and agnostics on campus to be no different from that in their hometowns, the transition required some adjustment for others. Christina Kwok, a junior majoring in Piano and Math, says that since most of her friends at home were Christian, Oberlin has challenged and forced her to deeply reflect on her beliefs.
Alice* is a more extreme case. She hails from Kenya, a country where a large amount of the population is Christian. Before entering college, Alice had never known any atheists or agnostics, and she says Oberlin has made her re-evaluate her own faith.
Nonetheless, several students say that attending Oberlin has actually strengthened their faith, as well as broadened their perspectives of the world.
“It has challenged me to…really think of reasons I do or don’t believe things,” says Nelson. “And I have been stretched and there are opinions that have changed a lot, but overall my faith has deepened quite a bit, so I’m grateful for the struggle.”
“I have a couple of friends who are Hindu,” says Gavia, “and it’s really interesting to learn about how they view Christianity and how they view their own religion. I’d learned about it in school, but it’s a lot different when you learn about it from somebody who’s grown up with it all their life.”
For Joseph Chou, a junior Environmental Science major, being at Oberlin has helped him embrace his homosexuality, a trait which his upbringing had taught him was “ultimately” wrong.
“[Finding out] I was gay…was a big thing for me,” says Chou. “It contrasted with a lot of things I learned back at home. Here on campus, they were open to it. This environment has been really supportive…[of] my coming out.”
According to Chou, his identity as a gay Christian has also changed other religious students’ opinions about homosexuality and helped them see that the issue “isn’t so clear-cut.”
Nelson, who is also gay, had a different experience. He says finding complete acceptance of his identity as a gay Christian from any one person or group has been extremely difficult.
“I find that, to generalize, those people that accept my sexual orientation as something to be celebrated are less than happy about the serious place Jesus holds in my life,” says Nelson. “On the other hand, those that tend to accept my Christianity are…less favorable about my sexual orientation, because they think it is sinful.”
Many of the students interviewed for this article develop their faith through one of Oberlin’s spiritual organizations. The three largest Christian group on campus are OCF, an evangelical association that welcomes all denominations; Ecumenical Christians of Oberlin, a progressive group that espouses more liberal forms of Christianity, such as affirming LGBT individuals; and Newman Catholic Campus Ministry, an organization that seeks to develop the faith of Catholic Oberlin students.
Oberlin College was originally established for religious purposes. Presbyterian minister John Shipherd and Philo Stewart founded the colony of Oberlin in 1833 to promote the Christian values they viewed as lacking in the surrounding areas of Ohio. Named after Jean-Frederick Oberlin, an Alsace minister whom Shipherd admired, the colony became home to the Oberlin Collegiate Institute in December of the same year. The school aimed to produce pastors, teachers and other Christian role models who would spread their faith to people in the West; and in 1835, Shipherd established the Oberlin Theological Seminary, which was later incorporated into the Divinity School of Vanderbilt University in 1966.
Though Oberlin’s liberal reputation may now overshadow its religious beginnings, only a few students acknowledge having moments where they wished they attended a different school.
“If my faith can’t live through Oberlin,” says sophomore Allie Lundblad, “then I shouldn’t have it. If my faith goes through all of this argument and it doesn’t live, it wasn’t very good faith.”
*Over one year after printing, “Alice” asked that her named be changed. It was turning up when employers Googled her name. They tend to take what is written out of context.
From ExCo to Curriculum: The Peace and Conflict Studies Concentration
By Erica M. Lee
pacs.nonresistance.org
Peace and Conflict Studies debuted as a concentration last semester after years of work from Oberlin students, faculty, and community members, who joined forces to change the Oberlin College curriculum. Discussed in various contexts since 1840, peace studies has always drifted around the curriculum of the College. In 2004, the successful push for peace studies to be officially organized and integrated into the College began.
The leaders tested their academic program of peace using the ExCo program. After laborious tweaking, the concentration now consists of an introductory class, relevant courses, an experiential component and a reflective essay.
Why a Concentration?
Oberlin has many departments, although only three concentrations exist on campus: cognitive science, international studies, and now, the newly minted Peace and Conflict Studies. According to Sean Decatur, Dean of Arts and Sciences, a concentration “embraces classes that, by definition, come from different parts of the curriculum or different departments.” Students need majors in addition to concentrations, but concentrations appear on Oberlin diplomas like minors.
“I think it’s stronger than the alternative for many students, which is double-majoring or triple-majoring,” said Decatur. “When you double major, often what you get is two silos, two collections of in-depth exploration of a subject, but not necessarily the opportunities to build connections between them. What I think concentrations can do is naturally provide that horizontal integration of ideas across departments in a way that having a double-major or triple-major can’t. I think it’s a really interesting alternative to have that in the curriculum.”
The College has three main criteria for its concentrations. There needs to be existing classes to build the concentration, coherence to the curriculum, usually in the form of a capstone project or introductory class, and enough support that the concentration will last through trials like professor sabbaticals.
Concentrations enhance the College’s academic possibilities without major increases in cost, as the classes already exist on campus. Thus, the financial burdens of creating a new department, including hiring new professors and creating new classes, don’t apply. Peace and Conflict Studies, for instance, has created an introductory course for the concentration, but the other courses come from Psychology, Politics, African American Studies, Environmental Studies, History, and Sociology, departments that already exist within the college.
“I think there has been interest both on the faculty side and on the student side for more concentrations,” said Decatur. The College is currently making a new credit system, and Decatur mentioned that “having a major and a concentration” could be “an alternative to a simple 9-9-9 system.” For this to happen, the College needs to develop many more concentrations that touch across all divisions of the College.
The History
According to Tom Lock, the historian of the PACS group, interest in peace education began at Oberlin College in 1840 when students established a Non-Resistance Society. In the 1930s, half the student body belonged to the Oberlin Peace Society and Oberlin’s president at the time, Earnest Wilkins, wanted a peace program, but he was unable to convince the faculty. Pressure to create an academic discipline oscillated until 2004, when students and community members created a series of ExCos on the subject.
The impetus for the ExCos started in Peace Community Church, where Melissa Hines ’07 met Al Carroll ’58. Their mutual interest in peace education led them develop three semesters of an ExCo course called “We’d Rather Teach Peace” that started in the Spring of 2004. Since then, the subsequent Peace and Conflict Studies ExCos have all had student and community member co-leaders.
The ExCo went into the classroom of 6th graders at Langston Middle School to teach peace four times a semester. “It got harder and harder to do because they’re so wrapped up in tests you have to do for No Child Left Behind,” said Carroll. Consequently, those interested in PACS decided to switch their focus from the middle school to the college.
Maia Brown ’10, who has been the student chair of the PACS Development/Support Group since 2008, explained, “The irony of that initial goal was that we’re thinking about how to teach middle schoolers and high schoolers, but we don’t have a program or a focus or a place to go at Oberlin College, except through an independent major.”
With this mentality, a new ExCo was created, called “Creating Change within Oberlin College—Developing a Peace and Conflict Studies Program” in the Fall of 2005. This class, led by Sheera Bornstein ’08, Kara Carmosino ’08, and Carroll, studied PACS programs at other colleges and found relevant classes already being taught at Oberlin.
The course also explored how to work through the Educational Plans and Policies Committee (EPPC) of Oberlin College. The EPPC gives advice on faculty positions, reviews every program and department in the College and considers changes to majors. Proposals for concentrations must go through the EPPC before the College Faculty votes them on them. The Committee is made up of eight elected faculty members and four student members who are chosen by Student Senate. An Associate Dean of the Faculty has a seat on the EPPC and is usually elected chair.
The students in the course showed their proposal to the EPPC, which told them that “it was a nice idea our group was thinking about this, but we needed some faculty to actually implement it at the college,” said Carroll.
Nick Jones, who was the Associate Dean of the Faculty and Chair of the EPPC at the time, explained further. “What seemed to exist at that point was a loose set of very different courses, which in varying degrees, addressed one of the key premises, or the other, of Peace and Conflict Studies.”
Still, Carroll learned that “if you can have a document which was well-written, people take you more seriously than, ‘Boy, I had a great idea we were shooting around in a bull session the other night.’”
Continuing on their quest in the Spring of 2006, Bornstein and Carroll led and created the Peace and Conflict Studies Development Group, comprised of nine other students and community members. The Development Group decided on three major goals for the following year: teach another ExCo, hold a symposium to promote PACS, and establish a faculty-led group.
Carmosino and Carroll taught the ExCo course, “Changing the World: Perspectives on Nonviolent Movements” in the Fall of 2006. The course had a large enrollment, teaching 20 students and 10 community members.
The ExCo courses at this time had a twofold purpose, explained Brown. “One [purpose] was just keeping peace and conflict studies in the forefront of at least some students’ minds.” The second goal of the ExCo courses was “to be able to build student interest.” The ExCo courses were integral to integrating peace and conflict studies into the College. “I think everything came from there, and then we knew what directions we needed to go,” said Brown.
The course had another role in the creation of the concentration—connecting students and interested faculty. Part of the class involved inviting faculty members to lead discussions, which brought together those concerned with peace and conflict studies. As a result, many of the professors who were invited to lead discussions teach courses now included in the concentration.
The group’s second step was a symposium. It was held from February 15-17th in 2007, with Colman McCarthy, a prolific columnist, author, and professor, as the keynote speaker. Other participants included current professors, professors teaching PACS programs at other colleges, and students like Bornstein, who were members of the Development Group. The symposium worked to unite interest on campus as well as connect Oberlin faculty to the faculty of other schools that already had PACS programs. The list of acknowledgments on the symposium reports thanks everyone from reverends of local churches to deans and professors at the College, which demonstrates Oberlin’s wide range of interest in PACS and the extent to which the Development Group extended their reach.
The last step for the Development Group was the creation of a faculty-led group, whose main priority was to get the concentration passed through the EPPC. Steve Mayer, the current head of the Psychology Department, and Steve Crowley, an Associate Professor of Politics, led the faculty group to work through the minutiae of the EPPC’s demands with Jones and delivered their proposal to the EPPC on April 19, 2007.
Although it needed more work, the proposal met with great interest from the EPPC. The general consensus was that there were too many courses associated with the concentration for it to be a coherent structure of learning, and there was a definite need for an introductory course. The Development Group used the advice given from the EPPC, and “they went off and came back with a much stronger proposal,” said Jones.
A big step for the Development Group came in 2008, when Oberlin’s Class of 1958 gave Peace and Conflict Studies an endowed grant of almost $60,000 for their 50th anniversary gift. Carroll proposed the idea to his class officers and explained, “By getting this fund going, it shows the college that there’s alumni support for it.” The fund was donated before the General Faculty passed the concentration and will be used for grants, speakers, and course development.
The General Faculty accepted the PACS concentration in March of 2009. “We could afford it, so we could see that it was sustainable, and it sounded like it made sense,” said Jones. “It’s so in tune with our history as a college. It’s so utterly needed, and I think it gets our heads out of the sand, in a way, and opens people’s thinking.”
Sage Aronson ‘12, the ExCo co-chair who represents the ExCo Committee at the College Faculty meetings, voted to pass the concentration. “I know everyone was very excited at that point. There were a couple other students in there, and they were pretty happy about it,” he said.
Mayer’s joy came from watching the concentration develop. “To see this grow out of the interests of the students and the community people, to get the ball rolling with such energy devoted to it, has been an amazing process. To be part of that, and to see this happen—it’s just a great thing to have happen.”
The Debut of the New Course
The Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies class, taught by Mayer and Crowley, debuted last semester. The new class invites many guest speakers, much like the ExCo, and is co-taught by Crowley and Mayer, which duplicates the former Excos’ co-leadership style.
The hard work that went into creating the concentration is evident in the class. The sheer number of guest speakers from a wide variety of departments demonstrates the number of people who have been involved with, or interested in, the concentration.
One of the many speakers who visited the class was Ombudsperson Yeworkwha Belachew. Belachew coordinates the Oberlin College Dialogue Center, of which PACS instigators Hines, Bornstein, and Carmasino were all members. In 2005, Belachew arranged for those taking the ExCo on creating a PACS concentration to meet with alumni who were involved with conflict resolution, including those who created independent majors for Peace and Conflict Studies.
“I have seen amazing things about conflict resolution in higher education,” said Belachew, as she addressed the Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies class. She described Oberlin College as “a vanguard of social justice” and declared that it was “long overdue to have a Peace and Conflict Studies program.” Then, she brought in current OCDC members Rusty Bartels’10 and Shana Osho’10 to work through a conflict resolution scenario.
Crowley explained the appeal of bringing in speakers like Belachew. “It’s partly to borrow from that ExCo model, but since it is an introduction to a concentration, we also wanted to introduce students to professors that they could take classes with and other disciplinary approaches to the subject, since it is interdisciplinary by nature, and basically let them know what they sort of things they could pursue if they do decide to take the concentration.”
Rebecca Witheridge ’10, who took the class last semester, agreed with Crowley about the guest speakers. “I think the best aspect of the class was the fact that we had a lot of visiting professors come in from different departments that I otherwise wouldn’t have gotten to hear.”
Crowley and Mayer are discussing how to work out the kinks of their new class. For example, they were unprepared when 50 students showed up for the first day when the class was capped at half that. One possibility of restructuring the class involves a larger lecture class with smaller discussion sections to meet the demands of students.
The professors would also like to attract more underclassmen to their introductory course. Because upperclassmen have the advantage when choosing classes, the professors are discussing whether or not they should save a certain number of seats for first year students. The class is being offered again next fall.
Outside the Classroom
Those involved with the creation of the concentration are now transitioning their efforts into developing an already existing concentration.
The PACS Committee, which runs within the realm of the College and is headed by Mayer, decides how to use the income from the endowed fund. It will mainly be given as support for students working on the experiential component of the concentration. “We’ll certainly try to help students who need money to engage in some winter term activity that will fulfill this part of the concentration,” said Mayer. Students need to write a proposal to the PACS Committee about how their project will fulfill the experiential component of the concentration to receive support.
The money will also be used to bring in speakers and develop courses. “The Faculty noted that it would be ideal to have more courses in the humanities and natural sciences as part of the concentration. So the PACS Committee has entertained the idea that perhaps we could use some of the funds to help support course development for new PACS courses, especially as it relates to the humanities and the natural sciences,” said Mayer.
Meanwhile, the hard work of the Development Group has not stopped. They have renamed themselves the PACS Support Group, which consists of six students and seven community members, and they help “in any way we think we can,” said Carroll.
One triumph for the PACS group was their kickoff speaker for the concentration: Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian 2003 Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Brown, Carroll, Mayer and Crowley asked President for a speaker, which, “through some happy accidents,” according to Carroll, resulted in Professor Mohammad Mahallati contacting Ebadi to speak at the Convocation in October.
Now, the goal of the PACS Support Group is to hire an endowed professor. “One need, certainly, is an endowed chair, I think, in Peace and Conflict studies—a real point person for this area, for this concentration,” said Mayer. He envisions hiring the chair with money, amounting to two or three million dollars, from donors or from the upcoming capital campaign.
Decatur was not optimistic about the endowed professorship. “That’s not something that’s being actively worked on in any way. The idea behind the concentration is that there are enough supporting courses and supporting faculty interested that it can function without having a fully committed faculty member.”
Students can offer support to the PACS concentration by getting involved in the Support Group or sitting in on the Committee, which has two student spots.
**Contributed Reporting by David Edward Clark
A Tale of Two Cities: Kabul in 1963 and 2010
By Rachel Bouer
pictureninja.com
While the city of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan has changed regimes six times in the second half of the 20th century, past and present Oberlin students have not stopped visiting and making their mark.
Oberlin alumnus and Kendal resident Bob McCluskey spoke in the Kendal Auditorium Feb. 18 about his Peace Corps term in Kabul between 1960 and 1963. The following day, College senior Robin Comisar presented a video he made about his winter spent in the same city.
Comisar volunteered with Skatistan, an organization that teaches Afghani children skateboarding basics and English. Comisar found the organization about a year ago and has been working for them online since. This winter term, he taught English, instructed skateboarding lessons, and helped with curricular development.
Though Skatistan certainly uses a unique approach to impact the daily lives of Aghanis, the need for international efforts is not new.
Forty-eight years before Comisar’s trip, the first Peace Corps volunteers pioneered the international service movement upon their arrival to Kabul. McCluskey said they came in with three goals: first, meeting the needs of the population they were visiting; second, fostering greater understanding by others of Americans; and third, learning more about the other populations.
In his time in Afghanistan, McCluskey did just that through everyday activities like teaching English, playing basketball and participating in other daily activities. However, life is not always sunny in Kabul. Consistent violence, harsh law-enforcement, and unforeseen demolition broaden the tension of this atmosphere.
Comisar said that children were often arrested the day before lessons; though detrimental in and of itself, is compounded by the fact that many of the female students were beaten in jail as they were in cells with adults. Furthermore, explosions near the homes of students on lesson days prevented the program-run transportation service from safely picking them up for their skateboarding lessons.
“It’s really difficult to run a school in Kabul,” he said.
As McCluskey’s visit was during the reign of Zahir Shah, a monarch who ruled from 1933 to 1973, violence was less common; the king promoted increasing education and a style of “new democracy,” as explained by McCluskey. He said that due to the many different ethnic minorities of the city, ruling over them was like “governing complexity.”
McCluskey met the King during his visit and displayed pictures of the event during his presentation. He said he was “impressed” with his charisma, and noted the Western dress of the Queen, which displayed the consistent modernization of the city.
As McCluskey was there for three full years, he received many opportunities to leave Kabul and see the country. “I was on a camel for 25 seconds,” he joked. He also showed pictures of the majestic Bamiyan statues, which are enormous Buddahs carved into the sides of mountains. Unfortunately, with the Soviet reign through the 80s, these treasures were destroyed.
Comisar was also able to travel around the city with the father of another Oberlin student, Ahmad Wahdat. In order to get around without much knowledge of Dari, the most popular regional language in Kabul, Comisar had a translator with him “at all times.” He said that this was a bit of an adjustment at first, especially in the classroom because it was “harder to get them to trust me.” He said they often would look only at the translator at not at him even while he was speaking. Eventually, they overcame this barrier and he said he was much better able to connect with the students.
McCluskey and his contemporaries also encountered similar experiences in their English classrooms. As boys and girls were in different schools and each class had 60 or more students, teaching proved to be a bit difficult at times, particularly as Afghani social stigmas toward asking questions were often incongruent with traditional American teaching styles.
250 students are currently enrolled in Skatistan programs, though 1,000 more are on the ever-growing waitlist. Though Skatistan’s approach to help in the region may appear frivolous on the surface, Comisar emphasized that their efforts are far-reaching and extremely significant.
“Skatistan has a real impact here,” he said. “It lets kids be kids again in an environment where they otherwise grow up way too quickly.”
Stevie Wonder and Bill Cosby To Open Litoff
By Erica M. Lee
christybharath.wordpress.com
The Litoff Building’s Grand Opening on April 30th and May 1st will include Stevie Wonder and Bill Cosby.
The Grand Opening will include concerts, jazz films at the Apollo, and workshops. Stevie Wonder, Bill Cosby, and Camille Cosby will also be given honorary degrees at 4:00 p.m. on April 30th in Tappan Square.
Bill Cosby will present “An Evening with Bill Cosby” on Friday, April 30th at 8:30 p.m. As with Stevie Wonder, tickets will be assigned by lottery, with first-come, first-serve overflow seating in Warner Concert Hall.
Stevie Wonder will headline a concert at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 1st in Finney Chapel. Tickets will be assigned by lottery, with first-come, first-serve overflow seating in the Apollo and Warner Concert Hall.
From Terrorism and Beyond: Bridging the Israel/Palestine Divide
By Rachel Bouer
lib.utexas.edu
Thursday evening, Hallock Auditorium was full of different sides of the same story. Exemplifying this were the speakers, Kobi Skolnick and Aziz Abu-Sarah of Israel and Palestine, respectively. They shared their different stories, mutual hopes, and future plans with students, faculty, and staff, some of whom are part of either the Oberlin Zionists or Students for a Free Palestine. The stories of Skolnick and Abu-Sarah filled the room with a warm glow that lessened the burden of the falling snow outside.
The evening began with an introduction from Oberlin Zionists co-chair, Sam Kleinman, who explained that both speakers had “turned from hard-line positions to peace activism.” Abu-Sarah was involved with a radical wing of the Fatah Youth movement in Palestine at the same time that Skolnick was an Israeli soldier and settler in the West Bank.
“What is normally known in the media is that [Skolnick and I] are strongly known as enemies. At one point in our lives we probably were enemies,” Abu-Sarah said. “But today we are here together not just as partners but as friends.”
Aziz’s Story
Following this meaningful note, Abu-Sarah walked around the auditorium stage and told his story beginning in his childhood days in Bethany, a small town outside Jerusalem.
“If you grew up there, there is no childhood,” he said. By the time Abu-Sarah was seven years old, the first intifada, or uprising, had begun.
He described the confusion and questioning of his childhood in this chaotic time.
“When you’re seven, you are trying to understand what’s going on,” he said. “Who’s ‘them’ and who’s ‘us’ anyway?”
Despite his lack of attachment to the conflict, Abu-Sarah encountered serious concerns often. He said that he and his friends threw stones, not out of violent intention but merely the search for entertainment. However, this could lead to shootings from the Israeli military, which ended the innocence of the game.
When Abu-Sarah went to school each day, he had one thing more important than his books to bring with him. Each day he had to pack an onion, whose chemical properties can counteract the effects of teargas.
Though this was going on around him, Abu-Sarah said he was still able to live in a “bubble” where it seemed that all that was bad would happen to others while not happening to him. Unfortunately, reality struck a few years later during Ramadan. The Abu-Sarah family woke up early to eat their pre-sunrise meal and then returned to bed, only to be interrupted moments later by Israeli soldiers who eventually arrested and took Abu-Sarah’s older brother for further interrogation.
Meanwhile, his family did not know why he was taken or where he was. After 18 days of agonizing waiting, the family heard that he had been arrested for throwing stones and would remain in prison for the following year. After his sentence, Abu-Sarah’s brother’s health had declined sharply due to poor prison conditions and brutality immediately following his arrest. Days after his release, Abu-Sarah’s brother passed away at age 19 in a Jerusalem hospital.
This devastating loss was the impetus for Abu-Sarah’s greater involvement with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Unlike his actions today, his first response at the time was one of anger, bitterness and violence.
“The idea of peace and reconciliation seems like such a stupid idea in that moment,” he said. “I felt it was my duty and my reason for life to get revenge; if I’m a good brother that’s what I have to do.”
In order to use this emotional response in an active way, Abu-Sarah decided to get involved with politics. By age 16, he was writing twice or more per week for a newspaper in Jerusalem.
“The articles were about how we should never compromise or talk to the enemy,” he said.
By the time he finished high school, Abu-Sarah said he was “so radical” that he refused to listen during the mandatory Hebrew classes his school offered. Ironically, because he had to then learn it later to get around the city and eventually go to college, Abu-Sarah stumbled upon his first ideas for peace.
He attended an ulpan, which is a Hebrew school for incoming Jews to Israel. Abu-Sarah was the only Palestinian in the class, and he went in with the plan of simply learning the language and leaving. He thought, “I’m not going to talk to anyone, I don’t like anyone here.” However, the simple nature of the class frustrated this strategy.
“You have to work in groups so they force you to have conversations about who you are, where you are from, what you like,” he said. “As you start having those conversations something starts changing. You start figuring out something kind of weird and strange— you have some stuff in common.”
Abu-Sarah explained that this brought down some of the walls he held between him and Israelis in general. He explained that before you really get to know someone from the other side, you “dehumanize” them.
“[You think to yourself,] they’re not as ethical and moral as we are. It’s true we do some bad things too, but our bad are a little less bad,” he said. “It’s therefore ok to kill them, ok to wish them ill. After you get to know them that argument doesn’t really stand.”
For Abu-Sarah, it was initially nothing monumental that brought him closer with his Jewish classmates, rather his love of country music. Over time, these realizations grew from casual conversation to startlingly deep insights. “Our blood color is the same, our tears are as bitter, and our pain is as personal.”
Kobi’s Story
Like Abu-Sarah, it took Skolnick a while to reach such an understanding conclusion. His background also began with a strong community and a mistrust of the other side. Skolnick grew up in as an ultra-Orthodox Lubovitcher, or someone who practices a specific branch of Hasidic Judaism.
Skolnick explained that this lifestyle had many boundaries.
“The education system was very strict,” he said. “I first watched TV when I was 14 and first read the newspaper when I was 16.”
In this sheltering environment, Skolnick was introduced to ideas from others who were reflecting on their lives and roles in their religious communities. One weekend, he met a friend who introduced him to a new philosophy of Judaism, Kahanah. It entails a much more militaristic view toward the Israeli Palestinian conflict than most other Jewish philosophies.
“If Palestinians use violence, we should show them we can use violence as well,” Skolnick said. “It was definitely a sense of empowerment.” After learning and studying, Skolnick and his friends took to action.
“We ended up in Hebron city. We’d go to the streets in groups of three or four… and throw stones at Palestinian cars. Every other weekend I was doing that because it was something new and fun,” he said.
Skolnick continued his ultra-religious education at a Yeshivah high school in a settlement in the West Bank. His life consisted of occasional violent acts, but they did not stand out as noteworthy at the time because it was just “part of [his] day.”
Upon turning 18, Skolnick joined the Israeli Army for his mandatory service. After basic and advanced training, he was in the same city of his rebellious youth, Hebron. However, it was not full of the fun and games he had experienced as a child.
“I was starting to see that training is not like getting shot in real life,” he said.
As he paced through the same streets he ran down as a child, he frequently encountered Palestinian children throwing stones. One occasion brought the horrors of the conflict into sharp focus for Skolnick. A large stone nearly hit his head, but if it had he “would not be here today.” The normal response to such action would be to fire rubber bullets; however, loading rubber bullets is time-consuming so Skolnick had a minute to reflect. In that time, he realized that what he was witnessing was not normal.
“I looked at those kids who were seven or eight and I realized I was there a few years ago. I started to realize something was wrong here and I needed to think about it,” he said. “From that moment on I started asking questions.”
Soon after, tragedy struck Skolnick’s life as well. One of his closest friends was shot by a Palestinian gunman during the Second Intifada. His friend was survived by his wife and five children, with one more on the way. Skolnick decided to live at their settlement with them, where he became an elementary school teacher.
Not long after, a gunman came into the school and shot at the children, some of whom were wounded or killed.
After working to save as many of the children as possible, Skolnick noticed that the now-dead gunman was not past age 17.
“I thought to myself, if we could do something that wasn’t fighting or talking about this, if we could just play basketball together or something, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Not that we would be able to live happily together in peace, but if we met somewhere else, would that take place?” he said.
After this, Skolnick began his career as a peace activist, by looking to answer questions about the origins of such hatred and violence.
If we bring people together and create a new perception, something will change,” he said.
“Showing People We Are All Human”
The pair met a year-and-a-half ago in the United States and since then have been doing activist work in Israel and Palestine. Abu-Sarah explained that they saw the greatest need for peace work among the youth population. Since then, they have traveled to 1,000 high schools per year, reaching approximately 30,000 students in Israel and West Bank.
They speak with the students about the other side and ask them for their perceptions, which usually are “not positive” due to media influence, Abu-Sarah explained.
One other project they have started involves Israelis donating blood to Palestinians wounded by Israeli soldiers and Palestinians donating blood to Israelis. Abu-Sarah said this received much criticism from the media.
“They said, ‘how could you do this? You are donating blood to the enemy!’” he said. “But it is better to donate your blood to the enemy than spill it on the ground.”
In order to accomplish these tasks, something different needed to be done.
“There are Arab groups and Muslim groups that work for peace and Jewish groups that work for peace but it is hard sometimes to get them to work together,” he said. We need an alliance of Arabs and Jews and Christians to show that we can do projects together and we can dialogue together.”
Though both men have since faced difficulties in their families and communities about their work, this does not outweigh the benefits of their actions.
The evening ended with a story by famous Israeli author Amos Oz as told by Abu-Sarah which exemplified his and Skolnick’s ideas and intentions for their peace work.
The story relates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to walking by a building on fire. When one sees this, they have three options. First, they could run away because the issue does not involve them and they want to save themselves and their families so they choose to ignore it. Second, one could create a committee to investigate who is to blame for the fire and by the time have convened, all of the people in the fire would be dead.
The third option is to take a bucket and throw it on the fire. If you don’t have that then you fill up a cup with water and throw that on the fire,” Abu-Sarah narrated. “If you don’t have that you get a spoon. You fill it with water and throw that on the fire. Don’t think I’m naïve to think that actually a spoonful of water could put out a fire of a building, but imagine if enough people would carry their spoons and would decide to do something to put out the fire. If everyone does the little thing they could do then fixing that mess over there is not that hard.”
Stevie Wonder and Bill Cosby Update
By Erica M. Lee
christybharath.wordpress.com
Oberlin College intends to have Stevie Wonder and Bill Cosby grace the Litoff Building opening, although contracts have not been signed.
Without a signed contract, Oberlin College cannot officially release the news. However, “We do anticipate that Stevie Wonder, as well as Bill Cosby, will be with us that weekend,” wrote Marci Janas, Director of Conservatory Media Relations, in an email.
“Stevie Wonder has communicated to members of the Oberlin College community his intentions to participate in our celebrations during the weekend of the Litoff Building’s opening,” wrote Janas.